Noctisardor Bypass I can't turn back around and doubt my destination

Presuming that Mahler thought nothing in particular of her — that she was just there, and that was it — the distress that rung in his voice was surprising. She halted, bloodied water dripping down from her face; flinched, almost. The worry in his voice was welcoming on the one hand, like a love that she had never had, but at the same time it made her feel bitter. Why couldn't he have been there before? Why was she not enough, never enough? And why did she even care what a man like him thought of her at all?

Fate had perhaps driven him to show her away, to make her seek out Wintersbane, to bring her into Avicus' teeth and let Merrick's daughter meet her untimely ending. Perhaps... But still, she could not find it in her heart to forgive him now. When she looked at Mahler, all she could think of was what he had made her do; what he had made her ask another man to do.

She swallowed thickly as he asked her to let him tend to her. Of course, the big strong man would step forward to fix everything. But then, she did want that... She did want him to fix everything. She wanted to tell Merrick what she had done to his daughter and then drive him over the same edge, to his doom, and she knew she could not do it alone.

Go ahead, she said, her tone cool and withheld, her body language guarded in his presence; her body language screamed that they were many steps back again, to the place where she would not show her true self to him. She wasn't sure she ever could, again. Or perhaps so much had been broken already that it was all she could do from now on, knowing it did not matter, anyway. She wanted to run away — from him, from Rivenwood — but she knew that Indra's heart was beating inside of her soon and she knew that they needed a pack, then. She was not so sure she could give this, him, another chance, but perhaps she could stay, for now.

She swallowed thickly while she waited for him to clean — knowing it would hurt — while Laurel thought what she would tell him. Would she say it was Merrick's daughter who did this? Would it further drive him to exact her revenge and make Rivenwood a safer place for her children to grow up in?